Page 19 of Ghost of a Chance

Just then the TV clicked on. “Baloney!” Judge Judy exclaimed as he raced to the other room to turn on the camera that Dan had left set up. But it was too late. They’d be lucky if the footage showed anything.

Kirsty joined him a moment later, two mugs in her hands. She gave him one. “Did you get it on film?”

“Too late. I got in here after it came on. But at least you heard it too,” he said. The remote remained on the top of the television, in view of the camera, so any footage would show it wasn’t tampered with off-screen.

She nodded toward the camera. “Should we film something so you have some footage? Maybe us talking about what just happened?”

“We can do that as a voice-over. The sound quality will be crap from where we are.”

Both hands wrapped around the mug, she stared at him over the rim. “You’ve never mentioned this but… Why Judge Judy ?”

“I wish I’d asked him when he was alive,” Jasper said. There was a lot he wished he’d talked about with Paul, but honestly, at twenty it had seemed like they had a helluva lot more time.

“I bet. I wonder how he always finds the Judge Judy show?” Kirsty asked. “I mean I know she’s on a lot, but the channels are different.”

“It’s always on YouTube TV. She has her own channel.”

“Did you think about canceling your subscription?”

Rolling his eyes, he walked over to the remote and turned the TV off. “I don’t have one and I’m sure the Airbnb owners don’t either. Thanks for the suggestion.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“And you don’t have to act like I’m barely able to get myself out of bed in the morning,” he pointed out.

“I didn’t meant to imply anything like that. You know Sherlock Holmes always says once you eliminate the improbable—”

“Canceling the subscription isn’t improbable.”

“You’re being contrary.”

“I feel justified.”

“Why? I sort of apologized.”

“Sort of.”

“Fine, I’m sorry I doubted that Paul’s ghost was real. But you have to admit it’s a tough ask and a bit of odd circumstances,” she said, going over to the armchair where she’d sat the night before.

She twisted her legs underneath her as she took another sip of her coffee. “I don’t know how you like yours so you’ve got lots of cream and sugar.”

“It’s fine. My grandma used to make it that way.” He leaned against the arm of the sofa.

“Mine too. You and Paul were like… Lando and Han or Luke and Han?”

“More Luke and Han. I was definitely Luke like in A New Hope when Han has his back all the time.”

“You never got the chance to have his back,” she pointed out. “Obvious right?”

“Yeah. But still true. I see what you’re doing?”

“What am I doing?”

“Distracting me so I’ll tell you all my secrets.”

“So you have a lot of them.”

He made a motion like he was zipping his lip.

“No more about you?”

He arched both eyebrows at her.

“What was the last thing you remember Paul doing?”

“He had been working on quantum transference in class when he died. Paul felt like he’d let his parents down during his first attempt at college, which was part of why he was always pushing me. Got to make the elders proud .”

“How would we find out what he was working on?”

Taking his phone out with his free hand, he used his thumb to do an internet search.

While Jasper didn’t remember much of Paul’s schedule, he could remember his adviser and favorite professor.

After some digging, he found that Paul’s professor was still teaching at UVM and there were two classes listed for the next day.

“We could go ask his former professor tomorrow. First class is at ten. We could get there early and talk to him,” Jasper said. Finally it seemed he was contributing something to this project.

“We should bring the textbook with us and see if Paul’s ghost responds to the lab he spent so much time in,” she said.

“Great idea,” he responded, unable to stop watching the delicate way she sipped her coffee. There was something tough and don’t-mess-with-me about her entire persona today.

Catching him off guard, she lifted her eyebrows at him. “You’re staring.”

“So.”

Taking another sip of her coffee, she set her drink on the table next to her. “Tell me more about you.”

Uh what?

They’d talked a lot about him. He wanted to know more about her but didn’t want her to think everything he’d revealed was some sort of exchange. She needed to know about his past so that she could try to understand the poltergeist in the book. “There’s not much you don’t know.”

“I don’t even know where you’re from,” she pointed out. “All I know is you live in Chicago in a fairly nondescript apartment, are a fellow Star Wars geek, and went to school in Burlington, but where are you from?”

If she was going to crack him open, he wouldn’t make it easy. He sat down on the edge of the coffee table, face-to-face with her. “I’m from Ravenpool, Vermont. It’s not too far from here.”

“Ravenpool? Is it a small town?”

“The tiniest. Numbers aren’t my thing so I can’t say how many people…but we have a Olive Garden near the interstate and some nice shops on Main Street. Just not much else. Mom grew up there and we lived with my grandparents until I was ten.”

“That’s interesting. Why did you move when you were ten?”

“Mom got a good job and I was getting too big for the spare room. She wanted me to have a space that was my own,” he shrugged.

He’d liked the little room at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

That was decorated with stuff from his mom’s childhood and that his granddad had painted a galaxy mural on because he liked Star Wars .

But his mom and his grandma hadn’t always seen eye to eye on things.

That tension had driven them into their own place.

“What about you? Where’s home?”

“Thoms Hollow, Georgia. Mom and I lived all over the place but we’ve been there since I graduated college. When I started making some decent money writing we bought houses next to each other. It’s a duplex,” she said.

“Really? You struck me as someone who would want her independence and live…”

“As far as I could from my mom?” she asked.

“I guess.” There was a softness to her face that told him she cherished the relationship with her mom.

“She’s cool. She had me when she was twenty-one, so we’re really close, and we have fun together.

She also is totally like me. We both like our privacy but we’re close in case we need each other.

Also when I’m on deadline she makes sure I have dinner every night.

It’s just nice to be taken care of,” she said.

He rested his hands on his forearms. “My mom has no boundaries. I guess it’s because my dad died, but she hovers constantly. She’s already texted me three times this morning just to check in. I couldn’t live next to her.”

“Or in the same state?” she asked, a half smile teasing her lips.

“Definitely. I haven’t let her know I’m back in Vermont.

Had to turn off the tracker on my phone.

She keeps saying there’s something wrong with hers and I’ll have to help her turn it back on the next time we see each other.

” Which he felt bad about. Sort of. She knew he could handle himself. He wished she would act like it.

“That’s evil. My mom is tech savvy so the minute I turn off tracking she calls me. What are you up to—shit like that,” Kirsty said.

“Do you tell her it bothers you?” His mom pulled that with him all the time, which he thought was something just she did. Maybe all moms did that?

“Yeah, because then she backs off. Like the other night I texted her ‘I’m at a concert and hoping to get laid.’”

“You didn’t say that to your mom.”

“Yup, and she just warned me to use a condom and said if I didn’t answer her text at six a.m. she was calling the cops.”

“Good thing Paul woke you up,” he said, remembering the blaring TV. Kirsty with her hair bedraggled wearing only his T-shirt from the night before.

A rosy blush spread over her cheeks. “There are worse ways to wake up.”